[James Romeyn]

If an owner of this speaker has experienced the negative symptoms described above, everyone reading this thread (including me) might be enlightened if the owner would indeed try reversing the phase/input polarity at the input terminals of BOTH the L & R speakers.  Nothing might be gained but there'd be nothing lost except the time expended in the exercise.  It would sure be less hassle & less invasive than inverting the input phase of individual drivers post-xo, as suggested elsewhere.

Every known review/report read on the subject speaker has been positive & the designer has a mile long star studded professional history.  It seems rather odd that the speaker would improve by resorting to such drastic reengineering as recommended in this thread by other members. 

My long time experience is that the more phase correct is the speaker, the more dramatic is the effect of correct vs. incorrect absolute polarity.  My experience is that the negative symptom when it is inverted is exactly as described herein. 

Please try it.       

[RCduck7]

As per prior post, I have my speakers reversed for mid and bass.  It certainly seems to be working for me but the post didn't seem to spark much interest and I don't think many others have tried it (nor felt the need to).

For the bass drivers it's dead easy to spot if they are out of phase while the speaker cable is connected the right way. Just a bass heavy dance or the like will do and you can see for yourself if the woofers will fire outwards or inwards. When they fire outwards they are correct.

[PaulFolbrecht]

As per prior post, I have my speakers reversed for mid and bass.  It certainly seems to be working for me but the post didn't seem to spark much interest and I don't think many others have tried it (nor felt the need to).  If you're tri-wired, as I am, it is extremely easy to try as I'm sure you're aware.  If you have a recording that you find sounds thin and 'sucked out', see if reversing the polarity gives you better body and projection.  Conversely, if you have a recording that you feel already has those qualities then see if the change is detrimental.  I believe some folks who have the benefit of a phase switch in their system will move back and forth for different recordings.  I haven't observed any negatives, but the benefits have been more obvious on some recordings than others.

Sadly, the folks at Hyperion are not inclined to share their thoughts on the circle here.  I don't know if there is any percieved conflict in manufacturers doing so.  I would be interested to know if they agreed with the phase reports for the 968 and if they made any changes as a result of that review.

If you are reversing mid & bass you could accomplish the same thing by reversing at the amp end and the tweeter, of course!

You guys realize that you could have component in the chain reversing polarity as well, right?  Many amps and preamps reverse polarity.  If you are not taking that into account results are moot.  And many recordings have reversed polarity as well - you only achieve accurate polarity by tailoring it to every recording!

That is a different issue than whether or not the midrange driver is in-phase with the bass and tweeter.

I'd rather run my speakers as they were designed than with my custom crossover mods - which is what inverting phase on one of the drivers amounts to.

I am now listening to these speakers with my Audio Note Kits DAC and pre and Audiopax 88 monoblocks, and this sound is exquisite.  It does not get much better than this at any price.  I find the Hyperion 938s to be wonderfully balanced and musical speakers, and extremely revealing as well.

[James Romeyn]

At a certain level of refinement the polarity orientation of capacitors is observed by speaker builders (the more costly the speakers the more likely this is observed; at the lowest cost levels it is almost universally ignored).  A few rare caps of moderate to higher cost come w/ their output lead marked (output +, input -).  Some builders like myself purchase cheapo surplus caps that sound phenomenally great but must be individually auditioned to find their correct polarity.  I've proven my results several times by marking the caps discreetly then retesting w/o knowing which side was marked and coming to the same conclusion.   

If the caps' polarity is observed in the speaker's build, inverting the input will affect a sum total two parameters:
1. the caps' polarity will be inverted relative to the amplifier's output phase, thus diminshing performance.  This means it matters whether individual driver polarity is inverted pre or post XO.  If cap polarity is ignored by the builder, only if the caps' just happened to be in correct phase by coincidence could this effect be noticed.   
2. the speaker's absolute polarity relative to the source is inverted.  For unknown reasons listener sensitivity to this item varies from high (I'm in this category) to inaudible.  Speaker sensitivy to this also varies: minimum phase speakers have high sensitivty, multiway speakers w/ driver polarities inverted relative to each other are apparently universaly unfazed (pun intended) by absolute faze changes. 

It's more complicated than first glance might indicate.

 

[PaulFolbrecht]

From my experience in building kits capacitors with polarity markings are very common.  In the Audio Note kits, all caps are so marked, I believe.  Certainly almost all, including those in the power supply.

[James Romeyn]

Paul
Are you describing polarized caps or non-polarized?  By their very nature all polarized caps have their output marked. 

I'm talking about the correct (for best audible performance) marking of the output of NON-polarized caps specifically for speaker XO construction.  I'm pretty sure, even based on shopping for speaker caps this past week, such rarely have their output marked.  It's unbeveliebly time consuming to test each cap, especially for second decimal matching, my preference.  (Plus I'm building three bipolar speakers, each w/ two separate xo's for six total xo's.  You can see why I'd rather type here than work.) 

But this wouldn't be the first or last time I was very wrong!   

I just read last week how/why the polarity affects performance (of NON-polarzed caps) but I'm getting old and I already forgot.  Hopefully a much smarter member will chime in.   

[RCduck7]

I had a relaxed afternoon that i could audition the difference with midrange reversed for the 2nd time now.
The first time i did this i heard a diference but i couldn't really point out what was different.
Now, i rewired and switched back a few times.
It was obvious when sitting at the sweetspot and with midrange reversed voices were right in the middle and more focused.
But i found the sweetspot a lot smaller.
When the midrange was connected in the right way as Hyperion intended the sound is a lot less sweetspot sensetive and a bit more open.
This was obvious to hear when i swing my head a bit to the left or right with both phase or out of phase wired.
For solo listening at the sweetspot, i prefer reversed though.

[RCduck7]

As per prior post, I have my speakers reversed for mid and bass.  It certainly seems to be working for me but the post didn't seem to spark much interest and I don't think many others have tried it (nor felt the need to).  If you're tri-wired, as I am, it is extremely easy to try as I'm sure you're aware.  If you have a recording that you find sounds thin and 'sucked out', see if reversing the polarity gives you better body and projection.  Conversely, if you have a recording that you feel already has those qualities then see if the change is detrimental.  I believe some folks who have the benefit of a phase switch in their system will move back and forth for different recordings.  I haven't observed any negatives, but the benefits have been more obvious on some recordings than others.

Sadly, the folks at Hyperion are not inclined to share their thoughts on the circle here.  I don't know if there is any percieved conflict in manufacturers doing so.  I would be interested to know if they agreed with the phase reports for the 968 and if they made any changes as a result of that review.

I'd rather run my speakers as they were designed than with my custom crossover mods - which is what inverting phase on one of the drivers amounts to.

I am now listening to these speakers with my Audio Note Kits DAC and pre and Audiopax 88 monoblocks, and this sound is exquisite.  It does not get much better than this at any price.  I find the Hyperion 938s to be wonderfully balanced and musical speakers, and extremely revealing as well.

Hi PaulFolbrecht

Crossover mods? You did more then just rewiring with the speaker? What mods have you done? Were you not happy with the mods?

The Audiopax blocks look nice and as 6moons also mentioned, tube amps with a bit power and SET amps in general should perform very well on the Hyperions.
Rightnow i can't get myself so far to get rid of my current solid state amp.
It does sound good but maybe a bit cold, but i also can use it as power amp, so i think this in combo with a tube Pre amp is worth a try. aa

But i think you can do even better for less money then with the Audiopax.
I'm very tempted in http://www.sacthailand.com/ amps.
I bet the Silk Glow Master GM70 monoblocks and even the KT88 which are more powerful then the Audiopax will prove to be of the best.
I honestly didn't hear them yet as it's not easy to locate a dealer for them, but i did some reasearch, read the hifi world review and listened to some customers that also tried a lot of gear in the past and were blown away about these SACthailands.
So far i only know an adress from a dealer in the Netherlands and in the UK.
I think they don't have many dealers as SACThailand is only building them based on an order from a client, they hand build transformers and the components themselves in house.